


Poetry of your eyes

by girl_called_sun



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-23
Updated: 2012-06-23
Packaged: 2017-11-08 09:44:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/441858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girl_called_sun/pseuds/girl_called_sun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Utter crack, which sheds a little light on all the jewel related eye description in the Tortall books</p>
            </blockquote>





	Poetry of your eyes

“Page Nealan, by the look of concentration on your face, I take it you are not writing about the history of the Copper Isles?” Sir Myles of Olau enquired.

“Sir!” Neal startled, automatically covering the scrap of parchment on which he had been scribbling intently. Joren of Stone Mountain leaned smartly over from the next desk and dragged it from under Neal’s fingers. “Oi!” Neal swiped at the parchment, but Joren was already reading.

“Love poems! Oh, dear, Queenscove. ‘Your eyes, like topaz, warm and glowing…’ Oww!” Neal cuffed him round the ear and tore his poem from the younger boy’s grasp. They were squaring up to fight when their teacher’s voice sounded, amused and mild.

“There is a long history of love poetry being used to communicate secret orders, from Kings and Governments to their agents.”

The pages stopped moving; Neal had his arm wound back to deliver a haymaker to Joren’s perfect jaw, and Vinson, Garvey, Merric and Kel were all in the process of standing to aid and abet their respective friends.

“I presume Nealan was merely involved in an exercise, to see if he could accurately encypt a message using the old historical method?” Myles raised his eyebrows.

“Yes, Sir?” Neal answered. He lowered his arm, glanced puzzled at his own hand, and stuffed it in his breeches pocket. “It was for verisimilitude. To help me understand the mindset.”

“Well done,” Kel murmured, not quite under her breath.

Joren snorted, but he had lost the initiative and he knew it. He glowered as he sunk back into his desk, indicating for Vinson and Garvey to do the same.

“So, Nealan,” Myles continued, “what were the advantages of coding secret orders and information in love poems?”

“Well,” Neal glanced about, “there would have been lots of them, written by all sorts of people. And they were secret anyway,” he trailed off, glowering at Joren.

“Very good. Hidden pieces of parchment could be sinister, in the hands of a diplomat. If describe how one’s love is like a Summer’s day, you can understand why they would be hidden. Private, but blameless. Yes, Merric?”

“Why not write in invisible ink on the poems?”

“Because it was often a routine procedure to scry the parchment. Hidden things would appear. The trick is not to disguise a mission as a love poem, but to alter the love poem’s meaning.” He looked round his students, some of whom were frowning mightily. “An example. As I am sure Nealan knows, physical descriptions coded for orders. Eyes meant individual people. The colour of the eyes denoted the target, according to a prearranged code, and the description of the eye coded the action. So, ‘topaz eyes, warm and glowing,’” Garvey could be heard to guffaw, “meant ‘the second prince, befriend and extract information’. Words mean what you want them to. Unless you knew the code, it meant nothing more than you were enamoured of your beloved’s eyes.”

“Is this really true, Sir?” Kel asked, dubiously.

“Really true. Read any of the old poetry collections. They’re just full of things like ‘brilliant emerald eyes’ which means ‘observe the queen’, and ‘sparkling sapphire orbs’ which I believe coded for ‘defend the king’.”

“I can’t believe that worked,” Joren sniffed. “It’s childish.”

“The simple plans often work the best. I mean, you’re dismissing it, aren’t you?” Myles said.

“Huh,” Joren replied eloquently.

The class was silent, and the bell rang out clearly.

“That’s it for another day, off you go. And I want an essay on methods of covert communication in the history of Tortall for next week!” Myles called out over the scuffle of chairs and feet.

Neal caught up with Kel as they paced down the hall. “I don’t think I’ll write any poetry for a while. I think told Uline of Hannaloff to assassinate the King, last week.”

“I don’t think it matter unless she’s a spy, Neal,” Kel said.

“Can’t be too careful,” he muttered, glancing about. “The world is a devious place.”


End file.
